Man, given the sheer level of sexism and homophobia on this board alone I can't agree that this fandom is as welcoming as you guys portray it as. There's a ton of work that we still need to do.

In places it's very diverse and supportive but that's hardly universal and we can and should fix that.

I forgot precisely what I said in this one but my general sentiment comes with the big caveat that there are tons of cruddy people still out there, it's just imo a lot more feasible to put up a papier mache wall around them & continue on with other friendlier folks. Toxics exist but imo are in no position to wield their toxicity as power in the proportion that it can occur in some other sectors of the fandom galaxy, because there is no longer any one generational bedrock in ours

One of the reasons 3rd party is big in TF is not just because they transform, but because there are multiple ways to get from an alt to bot mode, and several different size classes. People sometimes derisively refer to third parties all doing the same characters, but they all do different approaches and different looks, which gives the market a lot of variety. With action figures, it tends to be either the right loom or the wrong look, but Transformers by their nature are open to a lot of variety and interpretations.

I loved your discussion about embracing new versions of Transformers. I personally always have embraced new versions and I check out new versions before making my mind up as to if I like it or not. I'll never yell at someone for being into something I'm not, nor have I been yelled at for being primarily a G1-er. It really is a positive fandom! Every now and then you find a bad apple in the bunch, but I honestly haven't run into one of those in a number of years. And the more I look at the new Shockwave, the more I want him. Good luck to my wallet.

Hey gang! Thanks for answering my question. Lots of awesome fiction speculation and story ideas that yall talked about! To clarify, I think IDW has explored culture and really done a great job iwth the worldbuilding; what I was getting at was more about Cybertron as a multi-governmental entity, which IDW hasn\'t really explored; they\'ve done the monogovernment with the senate which was nice but not something I was really interested in as an origin story. Totally get that my original wording with that was poor and not very well-founded.

I'm team Shed Head. I just dig the shrubbery. If any of these guys are rescaled, they're the best bet. A potted plant can be any scale and still make perfect sense. A bit rocklords if you think about it. Except they can fit places with people besides hiking trails.

A good Transformers fiction that does go into the idea of multiple factions in regards to politics and the like is the Fanclub stories about Beast Wars Uprising, which did have a whole bunch of them existing in the later stories. They also basically do the "We are locking you to your bloody planet", though that's because its BW:U